Candlelight and chin kisses
by Tozz
Summary: An unlikely pair get stuck inside during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve. Secret Santa gift.


My gift to **Mage the Observer**, for VS's annual Secret Santa. I don't know if this is was exactly what you wanted...and the characters (all two of them) are super OOC...but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Or at the very least enjoy your holiday, haha.

Happy holidays, to Mage and to everyone. :)

x x x

"Please, feel free to go home now, Elli." A glance at his watch told Gill it was already past five. "It's after five, and it's Christmas Eve."

"You've told me to go a hundred times now," Elli teased, looking up from the file in her hand to smile at him wryly. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to get rid of me."

He sighed, and wondered if he could deny the tiny shred of truth in that. It wasn't that he wanted her gone, exactly, but the holidays made him irritable—any kind of festival did, really, though Christmas was definitely the worst. The seizure-inducing lights made his stomach churn, and he was allergic to pine needles. He'd once cut himself on the jagged edge of a broken ornament, and his thumb had the scar to prove it. He'd gotten food poisoning from bad fruitcake one year, and when he was six, he fell ill with the chicken pox on Christmas Eve.

And then there was the Christmas when young Gill saw his father cry while he decorated the tree, and Gill didn't get one thing he'd asked for, the same one thing he'd asked for every Christmas since. That year had been the worst.

"Christmas should be spent with your family. You don't need to help me out anymore."

"If that were the case, shouldn't you be home with your father?"

Gill opened his mouth to reply, when the sight just outside the window caught his eye. "Elli?"

"Yes?" She looked at him curiously, her view of the window obscured from her position.

"How long has it…has it been snowing like that?"

Elli frowned and moved forward, craning to see for herself. Her jaw instantly dropped. "Oh! Look at that!"

"There wasn't supposed to be a blizzard today," Gill muttered to himself, hastening to the front door. The second he turned the knob, he was thrown back by a spray of snow and the powerful, violent gale that had been clawing at the door.

"Help me get the door closed!" he cried, throwing his weight against it. Elli scrambled over and joined him, and with their combined effort the wind was shut out once more.

"This wasn't in the forecast, was it?" Gill asked, and Elli shook her head. He cursed under his breath. See, another reason to hate Christmas. It took place in the winter, the most dreadful of all seasons, where everything was pelted in an icy sludge and trapped you indoors. Although, the same could be said about summer and its hurricanes and blistering heat. And spring was when Gill's allergies were at their worst, so he didn't care for that season much either. Fall was tolerable, though he disliked tripping over leaves on his way about town.

"I guess I won't be able to go home yet, huh?" Elli said softly, with a smile, though Gill could tell she was slightly disappointed. She'd pretended like she wanted to stick around quite convincingly, but now that she knew there was no escape, the fight had gone out of her.

"Sorry you're stuck with me," he said over his shoulder as he walked over to the file cabinet she'd been working on. He picked up the abandoned folders and started sorting them. "But as long as I'm here, I'm going to get some work done."

"Oh, come on Gill, couldn't you take a break?" Elli asked, watching him from her position at the door. "Look, the lights are starting to flicker. I'm sure we'll lose power any minute."

"I don't see them flickering," he lied, and just then the room was doused in darkness.

He took a long, deep breath, while Elli said she'd go find candles.

x x x

Within a few minutes, one corner of the town hall's first floor was illuminated.

"I hope you're not going to try to any work by candlelight," Elli said, setting the lighter down next to the last candle she'd lit. "You'll strain your eyes."

The truth is, Gill _had_ planned on working in the dark, but he recognized that, for whatever reason, Elli seemed diametrically opposed to his efforts. He sank into one of the brown faux leather couches and tilted his head back, only just able to make out the ceiling in the yellow candlelight.

Elli took the couch opposite him, a glass top coffee table loaded with candles between them.

"You're awfully against me working tonight," Gill said with a half-smile, pinching the bridge of his nose, like he could squeeze out his irritation at the blizzard and the holidays. "Any particular reason?"

Elli smiled back at him, every feature blurred by the dusky lighting. "Other than Christmas? No."

"I don't get what's so special about Christmas," Gill said crossly, scratching his neck and looking away from her. "Or any holiday, for that matter. Don't know why the whole world has to stop for them."

"But don't you have plans with your father? I'm sure he misses you."

"I'm not sure it's me he misses…"

"What?"

"Nothing," Gill replied, clearing his throat and returning to a normal tone of voice. "What about you? Did you have any plans for this…wonderful evening?"

Elli nodded with a sudden wistful look. "Yes. There was going to be a party at the Sundae Inn. Yolanda said there'd be cheesecake…" She trailed off, obviously lost in mourning over all the desserts she'd never had. It made Gill feel an itchy guilt, even though it wasn't like he'd been the cause of her misfortune.

"I told you you shouldn't have come today," he grumbled as he loosened his tie. "I didn't need you here."

"Ah, but do you ever?" she asked quietly, and he found he didn't have a response. Not because he couldn't deny it, but because he didn't know how. He had always acted like her help was unnecessary, hadn't he? It was hard to undo something like that, even if he didn't mean it.

"I take that back," he said, after too long period of uncomfortable silence. "I don't know where the candles are kept. If it weren't for you, I'd be stumbling around in the dark, tripping over stacks of paperwork."

She laughed, which made him feel better, but he could tell it hadn't taken all her melancholy away.

"Sorry if I…" he began, and realized he didn't know how to finish.

"It's okay," she told him, but he shook his head, not wanting to be excused that easily.

"I never mean to…to be ungrateful," he finally said, satisfied enough with his statement. Thank you was something he probably didn't say often enough, or with enough sincerity.

"It's okay," she repeated, fiddling with the cloth of her skirt. "I'm quite happy, working here."

"Is that so," he said absently, recalling something. "But didn't you come here to train with Yolanda? You're originally from Flowerbud Village, correct? I remember being surprised the day you applied for a job here, knowing why you came here in the first place."

"I'm amazed you'd remember anything about me."

"I make it a habit of getting to know every new resident. Yolanda had told me a lot about you."

"Hmm. And to think I know so little about you."

"You never answered my question, you know."

"Oh right, about why I'd be crazy enough to work for you. I'm sure you're very curious."

"Indeed."

Elli blew out a breath in one big puff, scattering her bangs across her forehead. "Well. As you know, Yolanda is a world famous chef. It was a dumb idea to ever think I'd be good enough to work with her, but…I did. And then I quit."

"Somehow, I feel I got the abridged version."

"Oh, sorry, were you looking for something longer?"

"I've got time."

"Fine, fine." Elli sat up a bit straighter, readying herself to tell the story. "It's not something I like to talk about."

"Oh, I don't mean to pry—"

"No, no, I don't mind. Anyway. If I'm going to tell you, really going to tell you, then I need to start at the beginning…"

x x x

"So basically, in the end, you ended up quitting because you're prone to self-sabotage, but you used your inferiority to Chase as a reason to give up your dream, because you thought Yolanda was just wasting her time on someone like you, who apparently had no potential, whereas Chase was practically a culinary genius?"

The candles had burned down, dribbling wax onto the coffee table, but neither Elli nor Gill had noticed.

Elli smiled at him and shook her head in amazement. "You should be a therapist. Has anyone ever told you that?"

They both had glasses in their hands, and a bottle of wine sat on the table. Gill disliked alcohol, but his father had given him the bottle as a gift when he'd finally reached the drinking age. And for some reason, in the middle of Elli's story, he'd had the impulse to break it out. At the moment, he didn't really regret it; it had a sweetness that made his lips pucker, but it didn't taste so bad.

"No, no one's ever told me that." Gill loosened his tie a little further; the heat radiating from the candles had really started to build up. "Maybe I should consider it."

"You should," Elli agreed, taking a sip. She was quiet for a moment, and then giggled. "Oh, this feels pathetic, doesn't it? Getting drunk like this on Christmas Eve and feeling sorry for ourselves."

"We're not drunk, are we?"

"I think we are, a little."

"Well, maybe you, but certainly not me…"

"Hah! That's a good one." She leaned forward, reaching for the bottle at the same time he did. He bowed his head slightly, with a grand gesture, allowing her to pour first.

"Thank you, boss," she said, filling her glass and then tilting it towards him, offering to fill his. He accepted, and they were both quiet once more as they took yet another gulp. "Now," she said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "It's your turn."

"My turn to what?"

"Your turn to give your sob story, of course."

"Oh, I don't want to…"

"No, no, you have to. It's Christmas!"

"Fine, but what do you want to know? I wouldn't even know what to start!"

Elli chortled, her hand shaking and threatening to spill the alcohol onto the upholstery. "Alright, then I'll get you started. Tell me why you hate Christmas."

Her laughter was infectious for some reason, and he started chuckling in spite of himself. "Okay then, I will. I think it started, oh, say, when I was six?"

Elli nodded encouragingly, hardly able to contain her mirth.

"No, no, it couldn't have been six, that was the year I got the chicken pox. Eight, was it?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter, just get on with it!"

"You're right, you're right!" He burst into laughter again, and she joined him. "Okay, let me finish then, let me finish. So I was eight, and…" He paused, like a comedian hoarding a punch line. "…It was the year that I found out Santa Claus wasn't real."

It produced the desired effect. "Oh, that's horrible!" Elli howled through her laughing fit, clutching her stomach with her free hand while her drink sloshed in the other.

"Isn't it, though?" Gill said, still laughing himself. "Oh Goddess, it traumatized me. Can you imagine, an eight-year-old finding that out? And the way that it happened!"

"Oh no, oh no! How did you find out? Tell me! Did you see—did you see your dad writing 'Santa' on the presents or something?"

"No, worse!" The two were practically in hysterics now, and Gill had to gasp out the words. "I saw my dad crying!"

Elli's giggles faltered a bit. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Yes, I remember it very clearly: he was absolutely bawling, trying to hang ornaments on the tree. He couldn't see a thing, his eyes were absolutely gushing. And I ended up crying too, because I'd written Santa a letter—do you know what I wrote?"

She shook her head, her glee fading faster and faster by the second, while he felt as though he were gaining momentum with every word.

"I wrote him a letter—I can see it now, it was in crayon! Hah!—asking for my _mother _back! Isn't that the stupidest thing? How could I get her back? She was _dead_!"

Gill didn't notice when it happened, but suddenly Elli was sitting right next to him, instead of across from him, with her hand on his back.

"Oh, Gill…" The look of horror and grief on her face confused him. Weren't they having a good time? Hadn't he been making her laugh?

"It's okay, Elli, just laugh. Look, I'm laughing," he told her, feeling his body convulse with every breath. He reached for the bottle to refill his glass, but she stopped him.

"No, you're not laughing, Gill. You're crying." She touched his face then, and at that exact moment the lights of the town hall came back on, and suddenly he was aware of entirely too much. Like how the convulsions rocking through him weren't of laughter but of sobs, that when Elli's fingertips moved slightly across his cheek he could feel the wetness of tears, that her breath smelled like the sweet and sour wine that made his lips pucker, that her own lips were pursed now and moving in closer, and he could see them perfectly in the bright electric light.

And then he broke through the surface and could move again, and he grabbed her arms, forcing her to stop, though he didn't necessarily want her to.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, all in one breath, and scooted away from him to the other side of the couch. "I don't usually drink this much, I don't know what came over me, I just saw you crying and I…are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Gill said, with a strange calm. His breathing had returned to normal now, and rubbed his face, smearing away the tears. "I…I've never talked about that before, so I…"

She watched him steadily for a few moments, but he avoided her gaze, so finally she took the hint and dropped the subject. She leaned towards the candles on the table and blew, extinguishing several of them with one exhale.

"The lights are back on now," he remarked, finally able to consciously acknowledge this fact.

"They are, aren't they?" She smiled, and he smiled back, and then they both began blowing out the candles.

x x x

Upon looking out the window, they noticed the snowfall had reduced to something much gentler. Gill offered to walk Elli to the Sundae Inn.

They both stumbled along in silence, both still intoxicated from the wine. Gill, thankfully, was in too much of a stupor to feel mortified yet—though surely that, along with his hangover, was something he'd feel tenfold in the morning.

They stopped at the intersection in town where the road split, one continuing on past the inn, and the other leading off towards Gill's house.

"You can come join us, if you want," Elli said, speaking for the first time since they'd left the town hall. "Bring your dad along. It'd be fun. It's almost seven—I'm sure they're just getting started.

Gill stared at her with his mouth open slightly, his lips catching bits of snow as he stood there, wordless.

"Gill?"

"If I am drunk," he blurted suddenly, "then I cannot be held responsible for my actions, correct?"

"If this is about when you cr—that is, about what happened earlier—then please, just—"

"No, I'm not talking about that. Just tell me. Am I or am I not responsible?"

Elli looked at him like she half-expected him to have another hysterical fit again. It made her giggle nervously. "Well, I suppose you aren't responsible, not if you're drunk."

"Wonderful." He grabbed both sides of her face then and kissed her, right on the chin—he'd aimed for her mouth, of course, but it was the best he could do in his condition. "Now, I shall go get my father, and we will meet you at the inn."

He pivoted gracelessly on his heel and staggered off towards home. He went a few paces and stopped, looking over his shoulder.

"Best Christmas ever?" He hadn't really meant it as a question, but that's how it came out, so he waited for her reply.

She shook her head in disbelief and wiped her chin with a flushed face. "Agreed. The best."


End file.
